


The Trees Are Filled With Memories (Of Feelings Never Told)

by sadtunes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: And More Angst, Angst, Character Study, Gen, Melinda May Feels, Melinda May character study, Parent Melinda May, im lazy so i'm not gonna put many tags, you already know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:41:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadtunes/pseuds/sadtunes
Summary: Melinda May has never been a very emotional person.ORAn insight on how it is that she became one.
Relationships: Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	The Trees Are Filled With Memories (Of Feelings Never Told)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [where the fields are painted gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25122487) by [Nazezdha321](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nazezdha321/pseuds/Nazezdha321). 



> I was going to update my other fic- but I got carried away, so this is what you get.
> 
> We don't get enough Melinda May feels on the show, and I really love her as a character, especially her relationship with Daisy, so I came up with this kinda sorta character study.

Melinda May has never been a very emotional person.

Sure, she was once carefree, light, happy, and maybe a bit of a prankster-

  
  


_ “No Clint, you have to put that  _ there  _ if you want it to work, stupid.” _

_ “You’re both wrong! God, nearly ruined the entire prank. Someone tell me why Phil chose a pair of idiots as his rookies again?” _

_ “Shut up Mel and tell us how to fix it!” _

  
  


Or rather a lot of a prankster, if you asked Coulson, who was a main recipient to the onslaught of devious tasks her, Nat, and Clint got into.

But those days were long gone- a barely held innocence stripped away in a torrid hot place, where blood dripped from the wounds on her skin and pain bled from the ones in her soul.

  
  


_ “Take my hand.” She had said, and May’s throat was like the air, dried up along with any hope of a different outcome. _

_ “Take my hand.” She had said, and May desperately wished that she could. _

  
  


And so Melinda May is not an emotional person- was barely one before, and will never be one again. And yet- when mystic forces beyond her control cause her to lose the ability to feel for herself, she is left empty, despite how much she thinks she should be feeling a deep sense of loss; and all she can do is wonder when exactly did emotions become such a very vital part of her, and  _ how _ .

  
  


She is already a grown woman, when she meets Skye with no last name. She is a fully grown,  _ tired _ , woman only trying to look out for the guy who looked after her, back when she had been a husk of a person, back when she’s barely felt like a person at all. And when Coulson decides to take Skye in as one of their own, May says  _ be careful _ , because Skye is a child, May says  _ she’s a risk, _ because she remembers what it’s like to see a child die, and she never wants to feel that way again.

_ “She’s a risk.” May says, but she doesn’t say to whom. She doesn’t say that Skye is a risk to the wall she built around her heart, she doesn’t say she doesn’t want to let her close, only to lose her. _

She becomes a mother, when she meets Daisy Johnson. And she doesn’t know how and she doesn’t know when, but she sees a young girl who has never been loved and those emotions that she became so good repressing come pouring out like a flood, but Melinda does not remember how to swim.

Melinda has forgotten how to swim so she drowns in these emotions, in this love and it’s suffocating but she does not mind holding her breath if it means that young girl can breathe.

And it takes a while for her to realize that girl is not a child- she hasn’t been a child in a while- but a young woman. Daisy Johnson is a woman and Melinda can’t remember when that happened, much like she pretends not to remember when she began to love that woman with all her heart.

  
  


_ “Mind if I keep you company?” She said, and May said nothing because she was  _ not  _ an emotional person, she was  _ not.

_ “Mind if I keep you company?” I timid voice spoke and May smiled, light and barely there, because maybe she was becoming one. _

  
  


Somewhere along the way, the cold façade she assigned herself slipped out, and was replaced with a little bit of the person she used to be, and a part of who she was starting to be now. 

Somewhere along the way, Melinda became a mother, a lover, and a friend, and emotions were the one thing she could never suppress, despite how effortlessly she could hide them.

Somewhere along the way Melinda remembered how to live-

_ “You think I don’t feel anything?” She said, because maybe, maybe she did. _

_ “You can’t shut those feelings out, can’t sustain that. Embrace your emotions, your nerves, and use them.” She said, because she knew how that felt, and she knew how it could eat you up inside- slowly, deliberately, until all that was left was a shell of nothing. _

Somewhere along the way Melinda remembered how to love-

  
  


_ “You’re not the only one who cares” She said, because he wasn’t, because maybe she can let herself feel again. _

  
  


_ “I know what you’re doing, trying to distance yourself from everyone else so they don’t drown in your wake. I  _ invented  _ that move. It doesn’t work.” She said, because it didn’t, and the only person you end up drowning is yourself. _

_ “You don’t get to choose who cares about you.” She said, because that’s a lesson Melinda had to learn, because the heart does what it wants, and emotions are not a thing to be withheld. _

  
  


And somewhere along the way, Melinda remembered how to swim.

_ “I was a mom once.” _

_ Because she was. _

_ Because maybe she has always been. _

  
  


And so Melinda is empty, and seven years ago she would have been grateful. Grateful for a reprieve from the pain, the guilt, the rage. Grateful not to have to feel anything at all. Seven years ago she would have thought that feeling absolutely nothing, was better than feeling everything,  _ everything,  _ at once. 

Now, she realizes it’s not.

Melinda cannot feel, but she knows what is supposed to be there. She sees the events play out, and thinks of the emotions that she is supposed to be feeling.

Melinda cannot feel, and she wishes that the emptiness hurt, if only for something to hold onto.

Melinda cannot feel, and she is again the woman she used to be, lost in the void of nothing- drowning, and forgetting once more how to swim.

Melinda cannot feel, but she really, really wishes she could.

  
  


She has never been a very affectionate person either, but now as she holds onto her daughter tightly, she can finally feel something, the love and the pain and the loss and maybe-

Maybe for now that is enough.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Not my best, but I think this turned out okay.
> 
> Comments make me happy (:


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